The Taste of Shame
by teamdemonmonkey
Summary: Jasper's point of view when he attacks Bella in New Moon at the birthday party. Written for Stealth. R/R.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: This is for stealth. Because earlier today you were asking what Jasper did and was thinking after he attacked Bella. And because it's a one shot that I can actually finish.**

**Disclaimer: I, sadly, do not own an alternate reality that millions of screaming fangirls (okay… and some fanboys… fanguys? Fanmen?? Whatever) would love to exist in. I do own an alternate reality that I live in… because authors can't really live in reality. It's impossible. So all these characters and places and events belong to the talented, the rich and the inspiration to writers everywhere… MRS STEPHENIE MEYERRRRRRRRR!!!!!!! (Pretend I have an announcer's voice.)**

***Some of these events may look familiar. This is right as Bella is opening presents.**

**Oh! I almost forgot to add my lovely playlist (chapter titles are corresponding song titles). Not a lot of songs for me. You can pick and choose as you like.**

**Assassin by Muse (Darn it, Steph was right! They're perfect inspiration!)**

**More than Useless by Relient K**

Chapter One: Assassin

I could feel Bella's embarrassment and anxiety like Cloroseptic. It was a taste I experienced a lot around her. She always seemed to be embarrassed about something. I didn't mind the taste so much. It was tingly sort of numb feeling that my mind experienced, just as all emotions did. I remembered the taste of anger, hot and metallic. I basked in the sweet, spicy tang of lust and passion. While I enjoyed the fizzy, glowing taste of love, my favorite emotion was happiness. Happiness tasted warm like sunshine with a sweet, refreshing wave like mint. It was the greatest feeling I could find.

I watched Bella take a little package from my beloved Alice, while rolling her eyes at Edward. While I didn't have a problem with Bella, I wondered momentarily why he was so attracted to her. She seemed to hate everything he seemed to love. He gave me dry look so fast that Bella missed it. I watched her stick her right index finger under the edge of the paper and jerk it under the tape.

What happened next was something that I will never forget.

I could smell, instantly the sweet, spicy scent of Bella's blood, a single drop, oozing from the papercut she'd given herself. Exposed and so close that it drove me half mad with thirst and the beast, the animal inside me instantaneously jumped at the opportunity, surely fate. I heard, as if through clogged ears, Edward roar "No!" and throw himself at Bella, tossing her over the table. It fell and scattered Alice's dream-cake, the gifts, the flowers and…

And the plates.

She landed on a the shattered crystal just as I crashed into Edward like a landslide, a monster clawing at the prey, staring at me with big, fearful brown eyes and a horrorstruck expression. I could taste, in the back of my mind, the bile flavor of terror. I snarled from deep in my chest, the demon ripping his way to the surface. I tried to move past Edward, to get to my prize. My teeth snapped inches from his face, showing him that I was stronger, I would win. I wanted her blood! I wanted to suck the beautiful liquid from the tiny slice that broke through the skin to the blood vessels and capillaries that pumped the hot fluid through her fragile, defenseless body.

Emmett grabbed me from behind and kept me in his iron grip, but I was relentless with the thirst, the frenzy, keeping my eyes solely on the treasure I wanted.

But there was more.

As she'd fallen, Bella landed on the sharp, serrated shards of the crystal plates. The pieces had torn through the thin film of skin and red, _hot_ blood was seeping out onto the floor and into her shirt.

My thirst was tripled tenfold.

Chapter Two: The Taste of Shame

"Emmett, Rose, get Jasper outside," Carlisle said quietly. No! I hadn't tasted her yet!

"Come on, Jasper," Emmett grunted at me, dragging me towards the backdoor. I struggled, fighting to try and reach the prize that lay by the table. I would get her! I would break free of Emmett's –and now Rosalie's –restraining grip. Edward crouched over Bella in a defensive position, a low growl escaping from his chest in response to my thoughts.

They pulled me through the door Esme was holding open and into the cool night air, clean and untainted by the fragrance of the Bella's blood. It was a completely different environment. As I inadvertently took in some breaths of the fresh air, my mind cleared, my senses caught up with me.

Oh God. What had I done?


	2. Chapter 2

I took off into the forest, ignoring the sticky, sweet smugness from Rosalie and the biting worry and bland disapproval from Emmett. Esme felt nothing but concern, sweet and yet sharp. I ran to the river and jumped over it without evening breaking to stop. I ran into the forest, trying to outrun the guilt and shame that would undoubtedly follow my actions. There had to be some way to escape the feelings that would ensue such animal and unthinking actions.

I closed my eyes but all I could see behind the lids was Bella's wide, terrified, horrorstruck brown eyes as they stared up at me. I opened them again the shame filling me. It's bitter, unpleasant, vinegary taste made me wonder if it was possible for me to be sick without eating human food. I ran on into the night, not willing to release the intense emotions that pursued me until I was sure there was a chance at privacy. I finally stopped, twenty minutes later and a good one hundred miles away from Forks and the helpless girl that had nearly been my victim, another name on a list of names of the lives that I had taken selfishly. I sat down next to the ocean as the waves pounded against the rocky cliff I was resting at.

How could I have been so stupid, so incompetent? It was as if I had had a complete lack of control and lapse in concentration the minute the paper sliced the delicate skin on her finger. I had been fighting for a tiny piece of humanity that I could call mine for so long, without anything to show for it. The thirst never became easier to handle. The desire never lessened. I was still as helpless now as I had been all those years ago when I was serving Maria. I had managed to practice my control more, but it was a useless effort. I always had to leave before the thirst got the better of me, always had to stop breathing when the aroma of someone's life force grew too overpowering. I was no stronger than I had been; I was just more practiced on how much I could handle before I would snap.

I put my hands in my hair and then slid them down, covering my face, trying to block out the memories, the nightmares of what I had just done. But it was useless. It all played out before me as though I were watching it from a distance but could still feel the feelings, a dim mimicry to what I had felt at the time. Was I hopeless, then? Should I just try and give up being the decent, civilized, controlled being that Alice had led me to believe I could be? Was I destined to become the monster again; to become that which the legends of our kind told and people feared? My thoughts were swirling in my head like a hurricane, never settling on one notion. My emotions were eating away at me like a lava flow; leaving a blazing scar of destruction on my already tattered soul.

I wanted to die.

Footsteps came towards me. I felt too dead, too caught up in self-loathing to worry about who it might be. Edward came through the trees, blank determination leaving a bad taste in my mouth followed by the acid taste of pain. He sat next to me, staying silent while my head swirled with thoughts full of hate and dread, all directed at myself. I prepared myself to take the blame that Edward was sure to direct at me.

"I don't blame you," he said dully. "I'm sorry if I've ever done or said anything that would make you think that's how I would react. I blame only myself for not being strong enough to stay away from her."

"You always blame yourself," I muttered, staring at the ocean.

"It's usually my fault."

"This time it wasn't."

"But don't you see, Jasper, it was. I didn't –don't –have the strength to stay away from her. And in being unable to do so, I've kept her under constant exposure to risk and pain that only someone like me could cause. If I had not gotten her anything, she wouldn't have cut her finger. If I hadn't forced her to come tonight, it wouldn't have made a difference whether I got her a gift or not. If I had not taken her to that baseball game where she met James, she wouldn't have been thrust into the middle of a hunt. If I hadn't gone to her room at night and heard her talk in her sleep, I wouldn't have wanted to talk to her in class. If I hadn't talked to her in class, I would not have been so fascinated and attracted to her. It all leads back to things I could have –should have –done to prevent this from happening. If I hadn't flung her across the table so hard, she took the plates with her, all that anyone would have smelled would have been one drop of blood and not her entire arm gashed up. None of this was your fault, Jazz. It was mine; from the beginning." I stared at him, the self hate now rolling off of him like something metallic and burning.

"But you love her. And she risks peril and danger everyday. She knows the risks that she runs."

"It's insane that she is in love with me enough to jeopardize her life. She could do so much better."

"It's you that she wants, Edward. And tonight, I almost took that away," I mumbled, putting my face in my hands as I thought about how close I had become to being responsible for the destruction of my brother's reason for living. After the many decades that I had felt his loneliness and the solitary pain he felt for the loss of something he had never had to begin with, I knew exactly how special Bella was to him. He'd tried to hide his feelings for so long, but he wasn't perfect and sometimes things slipped through his carefully composed mask of independence and self-reliance. To think I'd come that close to being the cause of more made me shudder.

"We'll all leave," he said quietly. "I'll stay behind for a couple days while you all get what we need and leave and then I'll follow. I can't let her be hurt because of me ever again. She deserves a long, happy and normal life. I can at least give her that," he said.

"I'm sorry I lost control, Edward." He smiled briefly.

"Don't be. I've smelled her blood as it has flowed freely. I know the siren call it seems to hold."

"I suppose she'll be very frightened of me now," I said, somewhat mournfully. I liked Bella. She was easy to be around, except for her beating heart.

"I doubt it. She'll probably beat _herself_ up and say that it was her fault to getting a papercut and so on. Besides, if we're leaving it doesn't matter what she thinks of you. She's going to forget about all of us." And I heard the sad despair that made his voice break and felt the salty tartness of true agony waft towards me from him.

Whatever my pain could be, I was losing nothing.

He was losing everything.

I looked away as his pain engulfed us both, allowing me to release my renewed feelings of self abhorrence and disappointment.

I vowed, then and there, that for as long as I lived, I would never again be the cause for pain for any of my family.

In my mind and echoed in my mouth, I tasted the bitter, vinegary taste of shame.

The End.


End file.
